The New York Times · 5 October 1970

CP-1970-023

A Palestinian Solution

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The hiatus in efforts to promote a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement caused by the death of Egypt’s President Nasser and by continuing uncertainty in Jordan should not forestall all attempts to break the Arab-Israeli deadlock.

The cause of world peace and the interests of all Middle East factions call for support of the appeal by President Nixon and British Prime Minister Heath for an extension of the ninety-day Arab-Israeli cease-fire.

A precondition for such a move toward resumption of peace negotiations, however, is that Egypt and the Soviets repair their credibility by correcting their past violations of the agreement.

Meanwhile, the current paralysis of policy in Cairo and Amman presents a unique opportunity for would-be peacemakers to focus their attention on the real root of the crisis—the Palestinian problem—in an area which remains relatively undisturbed, the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan Valley.

Some Israelis have long urged that the West Bank, with its 600,000 or more Palestinian residents, should become a showplace for the kind of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence that was envisioned in the original United Nations plan for the partition of Palestine.

The Israeli Government has tried to win the hearts and minds of the captive Palestinians by ambitious efforts at economic development and by allowing them considerable latitude for managing their own affairs.

In spite of substantial success in the economic field—West Bank incomes are reported to have doubled in the last three years—and a minimum of military repression, Israel’s hopes for rapprochement have been disappointed. Like any alien occupation, however benign, Israeli rule has bred at least as much resentment as friendship.

West Bank Arab leaders have thus far spurned Israeli suggestions that they come forward with their own proposals. This was partly because they suspected Israeli intentions, partly because of opposition from the Jordanian Government and guerrilla leaders, and partly because some clung to the hope that Nasser would somehow solve their problem.

The death of Nasser and events in Jordan that have tended to discredit both King Hussein and the guerrilla extremists in the eyes of West Bankers may help to persuade these reluctant leaders that the time has come to act in their own behalf.

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